The Tinder-Box eBook

“Did they consult you before deciding to refuse
your suggestion?” asked Jane, calmly and thoughtfully.

“They did not,” trumpeted Aunt Augusta.

“Then wouldn’t it be the most regular
way to proceed to get an acceptance of the invitation
from the Commission and then extend them one to be
present?” pronounced Jane, coolly, seemingly
totally unconscious that she was exploding; a bomb
shell.

“It would, and we will consider it so settled,”
answered Aunt Augusta, dominatingly.

This quick and revolutionary decision gave me a shock.
I could see that a woman doesn’t like to feel
that there is a stick of dynamite between her and
a man, when she puts her head down under his chin or
her cheek to his, but advanced women must suffer that.
Still I’m glad that the Crag is on our side
of the fence. I felt sorry for Mamie and Caroline—­and
Sallie looked a tragedy.

In fact, a shade of depression was about to steal
over the spirits of the meeting when Aunt Augusta
luckily called for the discussion of plans for the
rally.

Feeding other human beings is the natural, instituted,
physiological, pathological, metaphysical, and spiritual
outlet for a woman’s nature, and that is why
she is so happy when she gets out her family receipt
book for a called rehearsal for the functioning of
her hospitality. The revolution went home happy
and excited over the martialing of their flesh pots.

I’m glad Jane is asleep across the hall to-night.
If I had had to shoulder all this outbreak by myself
I would have compromised by instituting a campaign
of wheedling, the like of which this town never suffered
before, and then when this glorious rally was finally
pulled off, the cajoled masculine population would
have fairly swelled with pride over having done it!

Of course, by every known test of conduct and economics,
their attitude in the matter is entirely right.
Men work to all given points in straight, clear-cut,
logical lines only to find women at the point of results
waiting for them, with unforeseen culminations, which
would have been impossible to them.

And I am also glad the Crag is partly responsible
for starting, or at least unconsciously aiding, this
scheme in high finance of mine; and he is also in
reality the silent sponsor for this unhatched revolution.
I am deeply contented to go to sleep with that comforting;
thought tucked under my pillow.

CHAPTER VIII

AN ATTAINED TO-MORROW

I’ve changed my mind about a woman’s being
like a whirlwind. The women of now are the attained
to-morrow that the world since the beginning has been
trying to catch up with. Jane is that, and then
the day after, too, and what she has done to Glendale
in these two weeks has stunned the old town into a
trance of delight and amazement. She has recreated
us, breathed the breath of modernity into us, and
started the machine up the grade of civilization at
a pace that makes me hold my breath for fear of something
jolting us.